Greg Krehbiel
So where’s the list of crazy things liberals tried to do and conservatives stopped them?
by Greg Krehbiel on 26 January 2012
I try not to post political stuff (or comment on political stuff) on Facebook. (I don’t always succeed.)
Recently I’ve seen this image (from that flaming partisan Lawrence O’donnell) that tries to imply that liberals are always the force of progress and social reform and conservatives are knuckle draggers trying to keep us in the dark ages.
Of course it depends on how you define “liberals” and “conservatives.” If you define “conservatives” as “people who oppose new ideas” — which completely misrepresents modern “conservatism”! — then there’s some truth to it.
But even with that definition, “people who oppose new ideas” have also kept us from …
- Eugenics
- Communism
- Socialism
- Reverse discrimination
- Speech codes
- Really weird ideas about sex (e.g., androgynous toys for children)
- …
All ideas from the left. And the list is fairly easy to make.
So, IOW, the concept is a lie no matter how you cut it.
2012-01-26 » Greg Krehbiel
26 January 2012 @ 6:31 pm
Conversely, things liberals supported and conservatives opposed:
1) American independence from England
2) End of slavery
3) Giving women the right to vote
We could go on… I also can’t think of one successful American “liberal” politician who supports communism or socialism. Oh, I forgot Obama–the communist, socialist, Muslim non-citizen….
Well, maybe Reagan was a socialist because he raised the capital gains rates…
26 January 2012 @ 6:53 pm
Some impressive anachronisms there, smitemouth.
Saying liberals supported American independence from England and conservatives opposed it suggests that your definitions of the words are rather flexible, given that the Loyalist “conservatives” were much more opposed to slavery than the independent “liberals”, and this fact was actually taken advantage of by the British to recruit blacks to the cause.
As for your references to Obama, if you want to call his preferred system of government crony capitalism instead of socialism, I’m not going to quibble.
26 January 2012 @ 10:52 pm
SM — so by what definition were the abolitionists “liberal”?
26 January 2012 @ 11:11 pm
They were for workers’ rights. :p
27 January 2012 @ 6:31 am
lol Tell the American Quakers who hid people on the Underground Railroad that you’ve figured out their political motives and identification for risking life and property to rescue ppl.
I’m sure they’ll appreciate knowing that.
And the folks who fought infanticide in Hawaii were liberals? Shoot, I think they’d laugh at political motives for that one, too.
Of course, if we are going to discuss the “end of slavery” we’ll have to have to say a bit more in the detail department. As in “where” and “when” and “for whom?” But really, to characterize what people do as politically aligned is just silly when it was not motivated by politics. The people who fought slavery didn’t fight slavery because they were liberals or because they were conservatives.
People love to point out that the Republican Party is “the party of Abraham Lincoln.” Somehow I think Lincoln was more than just a Republican. Same principle applies.
27 January 2012 @ 5:06 pm
Greg,
Being against slavery, or more to the point I was trying to make, fighting against slavery was a liberal fight because 1) It was against the established order, 2) it proposed that slavery was an evil institution and so saying pitted itself against biblicism.
The established order in the South was a hierarchy of white male landowners at the top and black slaves at the bottom. The white owners needed the slaves for cheap labor. They also viewed the slaves as part of an inferior race. (Not to say that there weren’t people against slavery who also viewed the slaves as part of an inferior race–Lincoln.)
Saying that slavery is evil challenges the Bible. The Bible has rules and regulations governing slavery. There are those that even we have had interaction with that hold to call slavery evil is to be against the Bible and to be against God. So, some would say that to be against slavery is liberal because it pits the anti-slavery person against God and the Bible–just like an evolutionist.
If we look at the arguments that the South of the mid 19th century and neo-Confederates use, one of their favorite arguments is “state’s rights”. They argue that the federal government had no right to outlaw, abolish, or fight slavery. Now where do we hear arguments these days about “states rights”? I know that Gov. Rick Perry liked to talk about it during his presidential primary run. It’s a favorite of the Tea Partiers. It’s a favorite of neo-confederates and paleo-conservatives.
Although we have Lincoln enshrined in a Memorial in Washington and on a mountain in South Dakota (Rushmore), some say Lincoln was an evil president. It certainly is not that uncommon down South.
If we compare the arguments of so called conservative politicians to so called liberal politicians, we see that generally the conservative arguments are the same arguments of the old South and the liberal arguments are those of the old North. What is interesting is that for 100 years up until the 1960s, on social issues, ISTM, that the Democrats (especially Southern Democrats) were more conservative on social issues. Johnson needed the votes of Northern Republicans in order to pass civil rights legislation. Now, we see a reversal in that some Southern Democrats switched parties because they thought the Republicans better aligned up with their views: Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, RIck Perry, In Trent Lott’s first race, he was endorsed by the Democrat whose seat he took over. Many of the old Southern racists found that they had a better fit ideologically with the modern Republican party.
27 January 2012 @ 5:39 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce
So was Wilberforce a liberal or a conservative?????
27 January 2012 @ 6:11 pm
He was an Englishman. Piss on him!
27 January 2012 @ 6:33 pm
SM, so does “liberal” mean “against the established order”?
People used the Bible to argue for and against slavery, which is why most American denominations split north-south.
27 January 2012 @ 6:40 pm
One possible definition, from the 1913 Websters…
Liberal doesn’t necessarily mean against the established order, but it is against being bound to it through prejudice or stupidity.
27 January 2012 @ 11:28 pm
And conservatism is in favor of being bound to the established order through prejudice or stupidity?
“Liberal” does have somewhat of a connotation of breaking with the established order of things, but why is it that so-called conservatives have been the ones promoting new ideas? (Welfare reform, social security reform, etc.) IOW, it’s not a complete description.
Also, if you define “liberal” as “in favor of new ideas” and “conservative” as “opposed to new ideas,” then of course the “conservatives” (by that definition) were against good reforms. But (1) it’s a meaningless comment, and (2) you have to put all proposed changes in the “liberal” side of the ledger, the good as well as the bad.
28 January 2012 @ 11:18 am
Something else occurred to me this morning. Who gets to take credit for / get the blame for prohibition, since it was animated by the same sorts of folk who promoted abolition?
As I recall it, the same basic movement pushed for abolition, women’s suffrage and prohibition. Were they liberals or conservatives?
28 January 2012 @ 7:04 pm
And the same crowd also pushed for fair treatment of the mentally ill. Hmmm, who will want these albatrosses around their political necks?
29 January 2012 @ 12:53 am
Trying to eliminate welfare and SS is not an exactly knew Republican position or idea.
29 January 2012 @ 12:54 am
“new” not “knew”…
30 January 2012 @ 3:44 pm
“Trying to eliminate welfare and SS is not an exactly knew Republican position or idea.”
Which means what? It’s against the established order, that’s the point. So now if you’ve been consistently against the established order, that makes you conservative? My head is starting to spin.
30 January 2012 @ 3:49 pm
Right. There is no definition of liberal or conservative that rescues the original quote from Lawrence O. from being a slanderous misrepresentation.